Backcountry Skiing

Before I could say, “Yip yip,” Togo dashed down the trail, plunging through half a foot of fresh powder and pulling me along behind her. As we made our way into the woods, my grin increased in keeping with our pace. The switchback mountain-bike trail outside Northampton, Mass., descended slightly but consistently, with gravity giving…

Snow has fallen up on the slopes and down in the valleys that make New England and upstate New York such a spectacular ski region. You can break trail for a few miles or a few days, depending on your ability level. If you’re looking for a starting point, David Goodman’s Best Backcountry Skiing in…

Have you ever skied a “lost” ski area: a hill that once had maintained trails, some sort of lift, and a base lodge or warming hut—but doesn’t anymore? The hill is still there, and we’ll focus on that shortly, but for now, picture the ski area itself. It’ll put you in the right frame of…

Winter recreation can intimidate, and for good reason: It’s cold and icy out there! But facing those elements also makes the experience all the more rewarding, whether you’re cutting turns through fresh powder or sleeping under the stars. Make the most of the snowy…

When I joined the outdoor photographer Jerry Monkman and one of his neighbors for a two-day backcountry ski into Katahdin Woods and Waters (KWW) National Monument in February 2017, I didn’t know what to expect. President Obama had created the monument just months earlier, on August 24, 2016, and the National Park Service hadn’t yet…

We started looking for a moose as soon as we arrived in the Maine Woods. Around each bend in the road, across every marsh or pond, we expected to see the gangly outline of the state’s most iconic mammal. So on our last evening, while walking a waterfront path below AMC’s newly rebuilt Medawisla Lodge…

This season, try your hand at a winter sport that combines the aerobic challenge of cross-country skiing with the powder-fueled rush of backcountry snowboarding: splitboarding. The sport was invented in the early 1990s by a Utah skier and avalanche forecaster, Brett Kobernik, who wanted to climb mountains on skis and descend on a snowboard. Tinkering…

Downhill skiing and snowboarding might seem like close relatives, but the latter owes just as big a debt to surfing. And snowboarding’s surfing roots are returning in a big way. Riders are using shorter boards, without bindings, to re-create the experience of riding the waves on backcountry powder. One manufacturer, Grassroots Powdersurfing, reports that U.S….

We broke trail into the fading light of dusk. Just as we thought to grab our headlamps, our destination’s soft outline materialized in the falling snow. We had made it. The cabin door was partially sealed by rime ice and snow—nothing a good shove couldn’t handle—and after passing through it and dropping our packs, we…

Working at Hermit Lake Shelters, at the base of New Hampshire’s well-known Tuckerman Ravine, can be pretty cool. The upside? Caretakers spend a lot of time outdoors, and if they’re lucky, some of that time involves making first tracks on a bluebird powder day. The downside? The ravine can be downright cold, and if a…